New Years resolutions and goal setting can be tough! Most of us don’t follow these simple steps and will fail at reaching our goals.

With the end of 2011 upon us, it is time to look into the future and your heart to see exactly what you want to accomplish in 2012 in your fitness and other aspects of your life.

1) You must have a “WHY” for each of your goals.

One of the biggest factors for making sure that you reach your goals is to have an underlying reason as to why you want to reach this goal. At Force Fitness we call this your “WHY”. Your “WHY” is something that truly drives you to do what you set out to do. If you set a goal of losing 10 lbs you have to know why you want to do this, and most likely it isn’t just to look better. Obviously everyone wants to look better. It might be so that you don’t have to worry about not being able to play with your kids, it might be to take control of your life and get off your medications, it might be that you want to look better because you have always been a little overweight and want to finally feel like you look great.

I promise that if you find a good enough reason for your goals that you will be motivated to accomplish them.

2) Write your goals down.

I am a huge believer in sitting down and handwriting your goals out. Each year I sit down with a pad of paper and a pen and reflect on my previous year and then look at what I want out of the next year. I keep every years goals on my computer (I hand write them first and then type them into a document). I also write out 5 and 10 year goals. It is fun to go back and see how close you came or how far you surpassed your goals from the previous years.

There is something special about hand writing the goals. It almost is like a contract with yourself and forces you to believe that you want to accomplish these goals. You also should write them in present or positive tenses. Such as I will make XXXXX next year. I am going to be 10 lbs lighter by December of 2012, etc.

Don’t just do this for fitness goals either, do it for spritual, emotional, personal, professional and all other aspects of your life as well. At the end of your goal writing session your goals sheet should list what you want your life to look like at the end of the year.

3) Find a support system.

Let’s face it, it is tough to reach your goals and stay internally motivated for the entire year. You will have periods of time that you struggle and find it hard to stay motivated. This is where a great support system comes into play. This can be your family, friends, or even your workout partners. This is why we create a family like atmosphere at Force Fitness. You have a build in support system of coaches, friends and people that know exactly what you are going through and we want you to succeed. We are your support system, use us.

4) Create both outcome based goals and procedural goals.

This one is a tip that I picked up from my friend Alwyn Cosgrove. Most of us create goals that are outcome based. I want to make more money, I want to lose more weight, etc. These are strictly based on outcomes. If you set procedural goals as well you will be able to track your progress and reach your outcome goals.

If my outcome goals are to do 10 pull ups and drop 20 lbs in the next year then you need to set some action steps in place to accomplish these tasks. Trust me, they won’t magically happen because you wrote them down. So you might want to do 250 workouts over the next year and also put in motion a pull up program. You may need to change one small thing about your nutrition over each week to help with the weight loss. A great one is “I will only eat noncompliant meals 50 times over the course of next year.” This ensures that every other meal is going to follow your plan.

5) Have a plan!

The biggest mistake that you can make is not creating a plan. As I stated before you can’t write down the goals and hope and pray that they are achieved. You have to do a little work!

For each goal write up a plan for how you will accomplish the goal.

Example: I hope to drop my body fat to 10% in the next year from 20%

Action Steps: I will begin my making one positive nutrition change each week for the next year. I will start with eating breakfast each day. Then I will make sure to increase my vegetable intake. After those steps are reached I will cut out all starchy carbs unless it is during a post workout meal.

I will make sure to get in 4 workouts each week for a total of 16 per month. At least 2 of these each week will be metabolic workouts and 2 will be strength training workouts.

I will make sure to do one active thing on the weekends to help with fat loss.

I am going to being a supplement routine to support my fat loss.

I am going to hire a trainer to get me started on my goal.

If you use these 5 tips to help you get in the best shape of your life I promise that 2012 will be the best year ever!

We have a lot of great stuff coming up and I am working on a little surprise for all of you that want to drop some weight starting in 2012. I hope to get it done by Monday.

Look forward to transformation contests. challenges, and 8 week nutrition classes in 2012 that will put the action steps in place that you need to stay motivated and accomplish all of your goals!
Have a safe and happy New Year!